Do you remember your first shot?

[SunnySlopes]

I was in grammar school. It was in Ohio so that'd make it the fifth grade.

Dad and a friend took me squirrel hunting. I had dad's Savage 16 gauge with poly choke.

I remember screwing the poly choke all the way down cause I didn't want it to fall off. All the way down was full choke, not a good choke for squirrel.

A chipmunk (they speculated) ran across a log and I must have hit it dead center. There was a blood splat on the log but they couldn't find the animal.

 

[daniel craig]

Yep, I was 21 and in texas and it was from a bottle of jameson my squad leader had just cracked open.

 

[Archie]

When I was much younger, 1958 or so. Under the direction of my father, I shot his Marlin Model 39 rifle (.22 long rifle). Many years later, my honored father shook off this mortal coil and I have the rifle.

Later checking the serial number indicates this rifle was made in the first year of production, 1923 or so.

 

[PzGren]

A Walther KKM that was put on a rest for me when I was about five or six years old. I kept the empty shell for a long time in my treasure chest.

 

[gulogulo1970]

Sure do, because I forgot to bring earplugs. 12 gauges are loud!

 

[shoobe01]

Do not recall first shot with a BB gun, though I have a photo of me shooting one. I do recall getting shot by one on my 10th birthday on a Cub Scouts outing, enough I went to the hospital and my dad got to exchange stories with the Police Surgeon who just happened to be on duty at NKC Hospital, who he'd previously worked with. Only sorta can figure out that I must have done first firearms shot with .22 at Boy Scout Camp a couple years later, but I am still bored to tears by .22 LR so do not distinctly recall it.

At a different Cub/Boy Scout outing, between 12-14, we went to a historical site of some sort and did all sorts of little familiarization with outdoorsmany things, very Jerimiah Johnson stuff, and one was a quite large muzzle loader. Like, smaller kids had to have it held up for them. It was pretty fun. Everyone wanted to do that the rest of the day. They let us put things downrange, so my felt hat had a .62 (?) hole in the brim until I outgrew it. There was a steel backstop under the dirt so nylon things people put downrange ended up pretty chewed up as hot lead bounce back. Felt did fine though. Neat hole. And I hit it!

First centerfire cartridge loader was an SMLE III* that I built back together from a pile of rusty parts I took with /nominal/* permission from a friend's parent's basement, found was sporterized but apparently by whoever had owned it as many spare mil parts of the stocks, sights were there still also.I finished it really well and pretty, took a few shots at a friend's land when I was college age. Yup, that old. It funded my first trade and then we're off to the races and many guns follow that.

*Really, strictly speaking, I probably stole a gun.